Dezerland Part 1: Bond and Beyond…

Home » Featured Posts » Dezerland Part 1: Bond and Beyond…Contributed by Russ Muller Photography
One lesson I learned may years ago was to never turn down an opportunity for a private tour of a car collection. That’s how I got to know Bob Shearer and shoot his S40 Collection, and it’s how I got to see the American Muscle Car Museum. When Tara asked me if I would like to tour Dezerland Park Orlando with Flacarshows.com, I immediately said yes.



If you’ve lived in Orlando for a while, you may remember Dezerland’s location as Festival Bay, an indoor shopping mall that hosted the likes of a Ron Jon Surf Shop and Vans Skate Park at the North end of International Drive. After closing in 2012, it was “reimagined” and opened as Artegon Marketplace in 2014 and operated until 2017. After it closed, Michael Dezer, a Miami based real estate developer purchased the property and began to transform the mall into what is billed as Florida’s largest indoor attraction, with 800,000 square feet of entertainment space. There’s indoor cart racing, a bowling alley, trampoline park, pinball arcade (all are Mr. Dezer’s vintage machines!), retail shops, and a 250,000 square foot automobile museum that houses over nine hundred of Mr. Dezer’s private collection of cars. Let’s take a walk through the collection…